The Automobile Club of New York today is endorsing a sweeping $18 billion plan to build a Second Avenue subway and make other transit improvements to help reduce gridlock.

“There is a need for more subway capacity. It’s just as crowded on a subway car as it is on the Long Island Expressway,” Mark Kulewicz, chief engineer for the group that represents the interests of millions of New York drivers, told the Post.

“Better connections throughout the transit system will improve service and make transit more attractive. And improvements in the transit system will make the roads more passable,” he added.

AAA joins a coalition of some 30 business, labor, environmental and transit-advocacy groups today calling on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to finance a $13 billion Second Avenue subway – running from Harlem to the Battery with branches to other parts of the city – as part of its new five-year capital program.

Transit advocates complain the MTA’s proposal for a limited Second Avenue line between 125th and 63rd streets is inadequate because it skips the lower East Side.

The MTA will hold a hearing on Sept. 15 on this and other proposals to better serve the East Side.

Meanwhile, the City Council today is holding its own hearing on subway expansion.